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This is why the “reckoning” narrative is a bit of an oversimplification. But while gender suits in general are commonplace, the claims levied against Activision, Riot, and Ubisoft are not. And even for companies that have their house in order, more employees mean more opportunities for someone to perceive discrimination. For companies with lots of employees, these suits are something of an inevitability - the more employees you have, the more opportunities there are for unlawful conduct and the harder it is to avoid or root out improper conduct. The claims against Riot Games were similarly salacious, (“There are unsolicited and unwelcome pictures of male genitalia shown to employees from their bosses … Another female employee recalled a colleague once informing her that she was on a list getting passed around by senior leaders detailing who they would sleep with.”) as were those against Ubisoft.Īs explained above, gender discrimination - and gender discrimination lawsuits - are all too common in corporate America. In the days after the complaint was filed, footage surfaced of high-level executives making sexist jokes and comments at BlizzCon. The Activision case also involves allegations of “constant sexual harassment,” sexual assault leading to suicide, and “frat house” culture extending all the way up to the CEO. But those allegations were just the beginning. To be sure, those cases did involve claims of pay and promotion disparity and gender-biased comments. The claims levied against Activision, Riot Games, or Ubisoft are of a different character. (“For instance, if a female worker had some personal issue at any given time, managers would talk about how, ‘we can understand she is not performing well because she has a lot going on at home.’”) The allegations against Sony are par for the course in employment discrimination cases - the plaintiff alleges that she received lower pay than male colleagues, that she was passed over for promotion, and that supervisors made gender-biased comments about her and other female employees. Simply put, the allegations in the recently filed Sony complaint are of a substantially different character than those at issue in any of the Activision, Riot Games, or Ubisoft cases. The fact that Sony is now facing the same kind of claims could reasonably be viewed as more of the same - Activision and Ubisoft had their time in the sun now it’s Sony’s time to face the music and clean up its act.īut while I can’t say the “reckoning” narrative is wrong, I don’t think it’s the best way to understand what’s happening here. In the last few years, the gaming industry has faced a reckoning, as some of the largest players (Activision, Riot Games, Ubisoft) have been taken to task for toxic workplace cultures, significant pay gaps, and other forms of systemic discrimination. In a sense, that narrative is beyond dispute. The common thread in the coverage is that the suit is the continuation of a “ reckoning” in the gaming industry. In fact, I wasn’t able to find a single article about the Sony suit that didn’t draw a direct parallel to Activision. What makes this suit stand out is the fact that it follows right on the heels of the ongoing Activision Blizzard lawsuit. And this isn’t even the first time Sony has faced these kinds of claims. Indeed, all of Fortune’s top 25 companies (if not all 500) have been sued for gender discrimination. In the abstract, the filing of a lawsuit wouldn’t be especially newsworthy or surprising - large companies are sued for discrimination all the time.
Sony made the news this week after a former employee filed a class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination.